by Eden Winters
Bo sat down and rolled his chair over to face Lucky, taking Lucky’s hands into his own. “You’re driving yourself crazy. If you have doubts, maybe you should listen to yourself.”
“But if I don’t do it, my dad could die. Why do I have to be his only chance?” What had Dad done to end up with this life resting in Lucky’s unreliable-as-all-shit hands?
“I hate watching you beating yourself up like this.”
“I’m not—”
Bo lowered his chin and raised one eyebrow.
“Okay. Maybe a little.” Or a lot. “What if I get tested and I’m not a match? Then what?”
Bo put his nose inches away from Lucky’s. “I’ll go with you. Get tested too.”
All those possible side effects? Did Bo truly know what he offered? “You don’t have to do that. He’s my dad.”
“Yes, he’s your dad. Which makes him important to me. Because you are.” Bo dropped a kiss on Lucky’s nose.
Just when it hadn’t seemed possible to love the guy more. The warmth in Lucky’s chest wasn’t all due to heartburn from too much coffee. “You’d do that for me?”
Bo squeezed Lucky’s hands. “Don’t you know by now I’d do anything for you? I’ll have to tell the doctors about Stephan Mangiardi’s magic elixir and the time I spent in rehab for hydrocodone dependence. But if they’ll let me donate, and I’m a match, I’ll help.”
Not many people wandered by Lucky’s cube without being court ordered. They’d learned to avoid the resident ill-tempered sonofabitch about his second week on the job. And the old timers warned the newbies.
Still, there came a time when a man had to do what a man had to do, no matter who might happen by. Lucky wrapped a hand around the back of Bo’s head and yanked him into a whole-hearted, can-feel-it-clear-down-to-my-toes-gotta-do-it-now-or-die kiss.
And he didn’t jerk away once their lips touched. When Bo couldn’t possibly get any better, he got better.
Bo pulled away first. “Call Charlotte and get instructions.”
Charlotte. Call Charlotte. Seemed so weird after all this time to pick up the phone and call, but right now Lucky couldn’t rightly remember why he’d avoided talking to her in the first place.
She answered on the first ring. “Hello? Richie?”
Oh yeah. A whole lot of hurt and shame from a million broken promises. He’d sworn to always be there for her. Yet in her worst moments, he’d been somewhere else, breaking a few dozen laws.
“Richie?”
“Oh, hey, Charlotte. I was… um… wondering…” Lucky shrugged and sought help from Bo, who might not have suddenly lost the connection between brain and mouth.
“…wondering what you have to do to find out if you’re an eligible donor,” Bo said quietly enough for Lucky to repeat the phrase to Charlotte and make the words sound like his. Sort of.
Charlotte’s gloomy tone brightened. “I’ll e-mail you all the details. And Richie?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. I know this is hard for you.”
What kind of person did she take him for if she honestly believed he’d say no? Oh, the kind of guy who got arrested and hadn’t been there for her like he’d said he’d be.
Now came the words he longed to say for so long, and couldn’t stop saying. Making up for the bad years might take a lifetime. “I love you, girl.”
“Love you too, Rich. I’ve missed you more than you’ll ever know.”
He’d barely ended the call when her e-mail arrived, giving instructions for his doctors.
***
After being poked, prodded, needle-stuck about a dozen times and every test possible run on him, Lucky stumbled out of the doctor’s office in a daze. First hurdle cleared. He and Dad both had A- blood, and were roughly the same size, or rather, were now after Dad’s illness cost him some pounds. He’d always been a stocky-built guy, mostly muscles from honest days’ work.
People back home used to call Lucky “Junior” because he looked so much like his old man.
Umpteen years ago.
Lucky spent time in the gym and working out at home for what used to come naturally. What did his dad look like now? He’d never had guts enough to ask Charlotte for a picture, and she’d never offered.
Bo staggered out of the door and into the parking lot, running his fingers repeatedly through the hair sticking up every which way. At some point, he must’ve taken off his shirt, for now a few buttons were mismatched to the wrong buttonholes. “Sorry, Lucky, but my medical history puts me out of the running as an organ donor. I’d never pass the psych test anyway.”
Psych test? “You can’t know that.” Lucky’s stomach gave a lurch. Because he might be able to donate, or because he might not be able? And no denying he breathed easier knowing Bo wouldn’t have to endure surgery and the accompanying risks.
“I’m still in therapy for PTSD and substance abuse.” Bo yanked at the shirt hanging unevenly on his body “It’s been less than a year since my overdose.” He frowned down at his shirt and corrected the buttoning.
“I’m in therapy too!” Hopefully, Lucky unloading his mind on a therapist once a week wouldn’t hold him back. “Hell, half of Atlanta is probably going to some kind of head doctor.” Or should, judging by the lunatics Lucky avoided on the roads every day.
Bo sighed. “Not because of drug addiction. And I’m doing better with the emotional outbursts, but I’m not exactly the most stable person around.”
“Not your fault.” Lucky would gladly accept life in prison to bring Stephan back and kill him in the most gruesome and painful manner possible. He slid behind his Camaro’s steering wheel while Bo took the passenger seat.
Lucky’s stomach rumbled. Time for food, and soon.
***
“Lucky? What are you doing?”
“What? Huh?” The tailgate smack dab in front of his car needed painting.
“What’re we doing at a burger joint?”
The truck inched forward and the menu and speaker came into view. Pre-Mr. Healthy coming into his life, Lucky regularly drowned his sorrows in greasy burgers and salt-laden French fries. Now he munched grilled mushrooms and salads, saving burger fixes for special occasions, or when Bo wasn’t around.
“I’m sorry. I kinda zoned out there for a minute. Maybe the car remembered the way.” Yeah. Good story.
“May I take your order, please?” a voice crackled from the speaker.
Lucky shot Bo his best hopeful expression. Warm burger, grease dripping down his chin, a smear of ketchup to lick off his lips. His stomach rumbled agreement. Comfort food. He needed comfort food.
“I’ll have a house salad, no meat, vinaigrette dressing,” Bo mumbled.
A test. This had to be a test. Lucky didn’t dare order what he truly wanted and get away without a lecture.
Bo placed his hand over Lucky’s. “Look, you’ve got a lot on your mind and you’ve had a hard day. One splurge isn’t likely to kill you.”
Really? “I’ll have a triple burger, extra pickles, large fries, peach milk shake.” He side-eyed Bo. “And apple pie.” Bo raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Okay. Relationships thrived on compromise, or so he’d read on the cover of a magazine he’d flipped through in the grocery store checkout line to avoid talking to the chatterbox behind him. “Hold the onions on the burger? Oh, and a sweet tea. The bigger the better.”
There. Compromise. He hadn’t gotten all he wanted.
“I’ll have water,” Bo said.
They ate on the way home, in silence except for the occasional moany-eating-good-food sounds, a slurp, or a world class belch from Lucky. That’s right, he belched like a boss, but only because Charlotte wasn’t around to challenge him.
The woman could burp.
And he went back down memory lane, his brothers huddled around, watching in awe as Lucky and Charlotte guzzled soft drinks and fought to belch the loudest. She usually won. Sounded like a fog horn.
Mama would fuss. Daddy would laugh a
nd say, “Aww, leave ‘em alone. Let them kids be kids.”
How Lucky would love to be a kid again, with a bad test grade his worst problem. He’d grown up safe and secure. Other kids at school talked about divorced parents or a drunk daddy. Lucky’s family might’ve been poor redneck farmers, but they’d been close, and they might give each other shit from time to time, but nobody outside better mess with a Lucklighter.
“You okay?”
Bo’s words broke through his brain fog long enough for Lucky to click the button nine times. Nothing.
“Here, let me.” Bo pressed the visor button once. The neighborhood gate swung back.
Okay, so the gate took things personal against Lucky. One day. Or night. Lucky. A sledgehammer. The gate. Oh, yeah.
Lucky drove to their house. Their house. What a concept. And he still hadn’t fixed the broken-assed garage door.
Barking sounded from inside.
Bo leaned over the console and brushed his lips against Lucky’s. “You’ve got a lot on your mind, so go in and get comfortable. I’ll feed the kids.” The finest bubble butt in all of Georgia flexed beneath a layer of denim up the steps to their front door.
Their front door. Their house. Their life. Lucky had security here, with Bo, without the Lucklighters.
But damn, he’d love to introduce them all.
He wandered into the house, puttered around a bit. Bo stayed close but not underfoot. Lucky got the message. I’m giving you space, but I’m still here.
The back deck called, as always when Lucky felt out of sorts. The doctor laid a whole bunch on him today, and not just health issues.
If he donated part of his liver, not only would he miss work, he might wind up responsible for whatever bills the recipient’s insurance didn’t pay, like follow-up appointments. According to Charlotte’s e-mail, Dad’s insurance wouldn’t cover the full cost of both surgeries. Their parents would be in debt for years.
Hell, he and Bo hadn’t owned the house but a few months, with decades left on the mortgage. Even with the GI Bill helping out, Bo’s college loan repayments ate a chunk of their budget, as did his truck payment, the electric company, water, trash pickup.
The neighbor with too much belly and not enough hair waved through the crack in the privacy fence and went back to his hedge trimming. Lucky put fixing the fence higher on his to-do list. At least the crack wasn’t big enough to let Moose through.
Though the cat might take advantage to taunt the neighbor’s beagle. As if on cue the mutt stuck his head through the fence and gave a bark.
“He’s not outside,” Lucky told the dog.
Lucky rested his hands on the deck railing. When had he become so concerned with bills? When had he settled down and started acting like everyone else in the neighborhood?
Well, maybe not everyone else. Chances were the balding guy next door didn’t get shot at on a regular basis and wasn’t living under an assumed name.
Then again, how well did he really know those people? He should’ve done a background check before moving in.
The guy went inside, the chick, chick, chick of his lawn sprinklers guilting Lucky into adding a mental note to water his and Bo’s newly planted grass.
Damn it! How could he worry about grass when Dad lay dying? What would happen to Mom?
Maybe he shouldn’t have faked his death. Maybe in time they’d have come around, welcomed him back into the fold. Too late now. And too bad. They’d have loved Bo. And Moose. And Cat Lucky. Probably the closest things to grandkids they’d get from their eldest son.
The sun set, the sprinklers stopped. Crickets, frogs, and birds made for one hell of a flashback.
Back on the farm, he’d have slept with the windows open on a night like tonight, whether or not he planned on sneaking out to do some fishing, or lie on his back and look up at the stars. Good Friday was coming up, when Dad did most of his planting. Then the family got together for Easter dinner, the one day of the year Mama dragged him by his ear to church.
Summer would be here soon, when he’d have headed down to the river with all the other farm kids to swim after they’d finished chores. And where he’d first realized he found a shirtless Billy Tucker far more interesting than the guy’s bikini-clad sister.
The door opened behind him. “It’s getting late. You coming in?”
Damn. He’d been out here brooding and probably worrying poor Bo half to death. Things were a whole lot easier when he hadn’t given a shit about other people’s opinions.
A whole lot lonelier too.
“Yeah, I’m a-coming.”
He held the door open to let Moose out and followed Bo in the house and into their darkened room. Flickering came from the bathroom. A sweet scent teased his nose, and light from a dozen candles caught the mirror, all shiny surfaces, and the half-filled Jacuzzi tub.
Bo said nothing, but he tugged at Lucky’s shirt until Lucky raised his arms and let his partner undress him. Lucky reached for his jeans zipper.
Bo lightly tapped his hand away. “Allow me.”
Lucky raised his feet, first one, then the other, for shoe and sock removal, nothing playful or sexual about Bo getting him naked.
“Get in,” Bo ordered.
Lucky avoided the candles on the tub rim and sank into warm water to watch the show. Bo opened his shirt one button at a time, but his movements weren’t sultry like a trained stripper. The pain in his eyes grew nearly unbearable—not pain for himself, but the pain of not knowing how to help someone.
When Bo finally unveiled his amazing body and slid into the tub, Lucky was half hard, and content to stay that way for now. Instead of sitting opposite, Bo settled by Lucky’s side.
He mapped Lucky’s face with lips and fingers, exploring every feature. Lucky savored the tracing and arched into the soothing touch of the scrubber and bath gel.
Water sluiced from Bo’s body and candlelight glinted on the droplets clinging to his skin as he rose and held out a hand to Lucky. He pulled two fluffy towels from the cabinet and toweled them both dry.
Lucky’s semi-erection withered, and if Bo expected sex, he gave no sign. He pulled the covers over them and held Lucky close. “You want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know where to start.”
Bo raked his lips over Lucky’s forehead. “Why not start in the middle and work your way from there? I know you’re worried about donating for your father, but what else is eating at you? Maybe I can help you figure things out.”
“It’s just… so much to take into account, and you know making serious decisions ain’t my strong suit. I’m a doer, but this time I can’t run in, guns blazing, take out some two-bit drug dealer, and save the day.”
Bo pulled Lucky’s head more firmly to his chest. “No. And I know it has to hurt. I remember when my mother died. I wondered if she’d have done something different if I’d been with her. Some kind of motherly instinct to protect me might have saved her.”
Lucky shook off unpleasant images of a young Bo being thrown from a car. “Or maybe you’d have died too.”
“But at least I’d know if I could’ve changed things.”
Lucky stayed quiet, soaking in the comfort of Bo’s arms around him, the gentle thudding of Bo’s heart pounding against his ear. “I hate to say this, but I’m glad you don’t know. I need you here.”
“Yeah. I might not have ever met you.”
Lucky forced a chuckle. “Might’ve been a good thing for you.”
Bo didn’t join in the laugh. “No, not meeting you would have been the worst thing to ever happen to me.”
Now wasn’t the time to get mushy, not with Lucky’s heart already hurting. “The doctor says the operation is fairly safe, but there’s still a chance I could die.”
“Yeah, mine told me the same thing, if I’d been eligible to donate. But there’s a chance I could choke on my morning tea too. Until then, I plan to keep on living.”
Taking a deep breath to buy time didn’t soften Lucky’
s bad news. “And then there’s the financial part. Charlotte tells me Dad’s ‘bout maxed out his insurance, and like hell am I gonna let Mama have to worry about selling the farm to pay his bills, but this could cost us one helluva lot of money. Money we ain’t got.”
Bo turned Lucky until their eyes met. “We’re talking about your father. Isn’t he worth any amount?”
Lucky shrugged as best he could, pressed tightly to Bo. “Yeah, but he’s my responsibility, not yours.”
“What would you do if my brother needed a liver, and I wanted to save him? Or my aunt? Can you honestly say you’d let me face it alone?” Bo jostled Lucky for emphasis.
“No. But—”
“No buts. We’ll get by, tighten our belts a bit. Dan down at the club said I can work any weekends I want to.”
Lucky jumped back. “He said what?”
“He said I could tend bar or dance at the club if I wanted for extra money.” Bo shrugged. “I made pretty good tips, after all, though dancing got me a whole lot more than pouring drinks.”
Other men, seeing Bo nearly naked on a regular basis? “You said you didn’t like stripping in public, feeling like a piece of meat.”
“Yeah, but if it’s for a worthy cause.” Bo’s strained smile wouldn’t fool anyone. “Besides, lots goes on in the club we should know about, and me working a night here and there would keep old T-Rex alive and well for when I need him. Undercover operatives need to maintain personas we can resume if we have to.”
Lucky gave Bo a free pass on the textbook-speak. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.” Not to mention how bad it’d tear Lucky up inside for a bunch of no-account drunks to drool over Bo, fantasize taking him home. “Lots of hot men and temptation at a place like The Stallion. You might find someone… taller.” Richer. Less of a lowlife. Not an ex-con. Someone Bo could be proud of.
“We’ve gone over this. I wasn’t a virgin by a long shot when we met. I’ve been around enough to know my own mind.” Bo patted his chest and Lucky settled back into his favorite spot. “If you don’t know by now how much I love you, and that I’d do anything for you, then I reckon I’ll have to take the time to convince you.”